Focusing Community Turnout at SG Tourney Events

I feel like as a community we've basically decided on THE majors to attend.

Combo Breaker
CEOtaku
NEC

Not disagreeing, but I'd point out that those events leave a pretty big gap from the start of December to the end of May (~5 months).

@Kai I'll keep an eye on the thread for a few more days before I add FF to give everyone a chance to weigh in if they want to. (EDIT: decided to go ahead and do it straight away) Also worldjem isn't responsible for the list on the index.

I am not interested in making EVO a premier tournament for SG. I would rather SG-exclusive players saved their money for CEOtaku or another event later in the year. Like kenin has said, EVO is worth it if you play literally any main game but if you're an SG player then it's just alright. There are better tournament experiences.

Yeah, it's better to think of Evo as a regional West Coast tournament than something worth going to for everybody. I think we're at the point where we don't need to prioritize events that force us to be self-run side tournaments even after Combo Breaker happened. If you want to go to Vegas, then it's a good excuse, but we otherwise have a good time there in spite of the event.

Yeah, it's better to think of Evo as a regional West Coast tournament than something worth going to for everybody. I think we're at the point where we don't need to prioritize events that force us to be self-run side tournaments even after Combo Breaker happened.

At the risk of sounding rude, that's because the ones still hanging around are the ones that actually play the game. The skullfan population has certainly dropped.

While this is true, it also true that attendance at every major that hosts the game has been higher than the previous year! So the game is growing. Having a community of people that mostly talk about actually playing the video game certainly helps though.

edit: I'm 99% sure that Skullgirls entrant numbers at majors across the board have been higher this year than last year, but it somebody has the statistics that would prove that conclusively that would be rad.

I'm glad people are responding to this thread again! I wanted to reply but I didn't want to double post. :c

I believe a next big step for this community is growing scenes on a LOCAL level. We have record high attendance for majors across the board. Now that the final version of the game is out on PS4, which is the tournament standard console (minus for KI, I guess) going forward, now is the best time to try and introduce people to the game.

I've had a lot of luck with this in Kansas City. When SF5 comes out, a bunch of new players will enter the fighting game community, just like with Street Fighter 4. Many of those players will be interested in other titles and branch off into other games. I feel like it's our job as a community to help people that think this game "looks cool" learn to play it. We do a good job of organizing information and making tutorial videos but we could do better. We also need to be fighting the notion that this is a dead game when we're getting solid numbers across the board at majors. Obviously we're never going to get SF, Guilty Gear or MK numbers, but for the type of game this is our numbers are really good.

Again, I've had a lot of success with this in Kansas City. We started a local tournament series called "First 2 Burst" which focuses on anime games (SG, GG, and Persona 4 Arena). The goal of this series is to get new players to enter and learn the games, which is why they feature low entry fees and fairer payout models then other tournaments usually have.

Bringing new blood into the community is important. We have a very motivated and mobile playerbase, but we need to be introducing people into that playerbase.

To be honest I feel like every Local Scene that can grab players is already doing a really good job. Florida, SoCal, PNW, NorCal, KC, Chicago / Midwest, and Tristate all have very active scenes with regular events that seem to be growing on a somewhat steady basis. The problem is that there are lots of areas where players are stranded with just about no local players (see: most of the scene in the south)

To be honest I feel like every Local Scene that can grab players is already doing a really good job. Florida, SoCal, PNW, NorCal, KC, Chicago / Midwest, and Tristate all have very active scenes with regular events that seem to be growing on a somewhat steady basis. The problem is that there are lots of areas where players are stranded with just about no local players (see: most of the scene in the south)

I'm curious as to what other monthly local tournament series feature Skullgirls. Does anyone have a comprehensive list?

I'm curious as to what other monthly local tournament series feature Skullgirls. Does anyone have a comprehensive list?

Tristate - Inflict/CloudfestsVA/MD - Xanadu/Fraudsgarden (SOVA)New England / PcMeanuts Land - Game UndergroundNorCal - NorCal Battle OperaSoCal - SaltyPNW - Wherever their venue is. Idk. I know they have stuff going on at least.Florida - FrozenDolfin is apparently running something now. Plus they have medicfests now and then.Kansas City - MaxoutToronto - Has a monthlyBrazil - Has an online weekly. IIRC they're all too far away to meet offline but they still have a really active scene.Chicago -

Kai said:

Chicago has a monthly at WIT, and a bi-monthly(?) at EXP gaming. Our WIT monthly fell apart recently after a bad month for sick people and no-shows, so we're trying to pick it back up.

I sometimes get the feeling that there are players scattered around the country that aren't aware of what there options for offline scenes are. Scenes could potentially pop up in places they weren't before if people have at least one other person to play with.

One of the guys in our local community (shoutouts to Dyc, who will probably never read this) started a Third Strike revolution in Kansas City by simply bringing 3S to our local meetups and playing it until other people started being interested and played with him. People are playing that game every week now and interest in 3S has exploded. I'm playing the game seriously because of him now. He took "this game looks fun" and turned it into "this game is awesome, I want to get better at at it".

No reason this couldn't happen with Skullgirls. If even one or two Skullgirls players find out about a local fighting game scene and start going there and seeing if anyone wants to play, that plants the seeds of a local community.

Here are some ideas on how to do this:
1. Link to the Facebook page (if your community has one) in your region's Skullheart thread. 99% of discussion of meetups, game nights and tournaments goes on in our Facebook page and I'd imagine it's the same for everyone else. Make sure local players know where the discussion is actually happening. Skullheart regional threads that haven't been updated in months give the impression that the community is inactive when this usually isn't the case. This was the case with SRK too, people just prefer to use Facebook for organizing game nights and tournaments these days.

2. Ask around your local community if anybody is interested in learning the game, then bring a setup to your game nights and show them the ropes. This has been how we've picking up a lot of new players lately.

3. For the Steam discussion forums for Skullgirls, maybe someone with admin privileges (is it just developers or do Steam forums have mods? idk) makes an OP that links to beginner resources on Skullheart and regional matchmaking threads. This will give new players a place to go to learn how to play and find out if there's any local offline competition in their area.

I realize we can't just throw a dragon's tooth in the ground and make thousands of new players appear, but I think there are some things that can be done to find interest in the game in local communities that may not have been apparent at first glance.

Beginning of 2015, it was all about getting visibility up in our region. We were able to do that with HitBox Arena & Paradise Found. The monthlies obviously had their ups & downs, but (ironically) after EVO, things kinda just took off. Lab Zero threw their muscle behind the movement & certain TOs started taking notice (again). The scene actually ran into the wall of having to choose which events to attend because there was just so much going on.

Look at us now... on the verge of having just a humdinger of a tourney at NEC, with our venerable guest from Japan in the brackets thanks to a frankly outstanding community effort.

I made a promise at the beginning of the year and it looks like things are coming full circle.

tl;dr:
Atlantic City, New Jersey
March 11-13, 2016
SG is on the roster with a proposed $500 pot bonus (sponsors aren't final, so it could go up or down I guess)
$30 reg and $10 entry if you don't bring a setup
Seems to be primarily a smash event, but has a pretty balanced selection of games, is being run by Hitbox Arcade and KPB will be there streaming

The one year I went, the prize for first place at Skullgirls was a granola bar and a bottle of water. Tekken was pretty cool though. If you're going to Final Round for one of the main games it is a very good tournament. Do not go if you only care about Skullgirls. (Sort of like Evo I guess).

It's a Big E tournament, the community-run tournaments at FR have been historically awful, if I go to anything in March it'd be Do or Di, March might not even be a tourney month for me, and seriously it's a Big E major where we don't even probably have side tournament status at currently.

If the Atlanta players make literally any case for going then I'll consider it, but that much hasn't even happened.

Uh????
I've talked to Min and E and they've both been very happy about the numbers with NEC.
And they wouldn't give us free entry for Winter Brawl if they didn't like us???

I think part of it stems from what happen at TFC, and how that whole mess was dealt with. SG was not handled there greatly, and I can't say much about how the tourney experience is at other Big E major's (NEC was my first) but from what I gather when I was there that there was a good 70-30 agreement that Big E majors for SG can be a mess, and he doesn't run tourneys that well.

People have been asking me about GUTS 4 since the day after GUTS 3. I'm super happy to finally be able to say that GUTS 4 will be happening November 11th. Here are some factz

-Skullgirls has been a main game at every GUTS
-Skullgirls has been on stream every GUTS except the first one
-Everyone who went to GUTS 3 had a good time (except maybe the guy I DQ'd from UNIEL because he didn't respond when I pronounced his name wrong)
-GUTS 4 will be at the same venue as the previous GUTS, the Foxwoods Resort and Casino. This venue went over well with most folks, I mean there's a Dunkin Donuts right outside the ballroom that's OP
-November 11th-13th I don't THINK conflicts with anything other tournaments or events
-If you don't go I'll cry